I suppose if I was capable of dismissing this, or forgetting it, then I wouldn’t be who I am. Maybe I’d be happier, I don’t know.
I closed the laptop, finished the bourbon and set my cup down.
“What do you want from me?” I asked.
The woman opened her purse again and removed another envelope. She placed it on the desk and slid it across to me. When I opened it I could see the glossy border of a photograph. I hesitated, not wanting to see another mutilated girl. But I was already in motion in this, so I sucked it up and slid the photo out of the envelope.
It was another girl.
This one had her skin.
She was a beautiful teenager, with bright blue eyes and a lot of curves that were evident in the skimpy costume she wore. A blue glitter g-string and high heels.
“Her name is Denise Sturbridge,” said the woman. “She’s only fifteen, which makes her the youngest of the women in question, but as you can see she looks quite a bit older. She’s a runaway from Easton here in Pennsylvania. Abusive father, indifferent mother. Pretty common story, and very much in keeping with the backstories of the other girls. She took off four months ago, got picked up by the kind of predator who trolls bus stops and train stations. He got her high and turned her out to work conventions. She was scouted out of there to work in a gentleman’s club near the Philadelphia airport. Fake I.D. that says she’s nineteen. She dances under the name of Bambi.”
I set the photo down.
“Tell me the rest,” I said.
“She went missing two days ago. We believe that she will be number seventeen.”
“That’s a big leap. A lot of girls go missing.”
She nodded. “She fits a type.”
I glanced at the closed laptop and the black flash drive. “So the killer is targeting exotic dancers.”
“Yes.”
“And he’s been on the move from Seattle, across the country. Now you think he’s here.”
“Yes. And there’s not much time.”
I cocked my head. “Now how the hell would you know that?”
“Because it’s been four-hundred and seventy-five days since the first girl died. The coroner in Seattle was able to determine the day she died. We think Denise will be murdered in the next twenty-four hours.”
“How do you figure that?”
“Do the math, Mr. Hunter.”
I did.
Didn’t need a calculator, either. It was simple arithmetic. Add a day to the span of the killings and divide by seventeen.
I could feel my blood turn to ice.
“Oh shit,” I said.
She studied me with her dark eyes and I could see the moment when she knew that I knew that she knew. Chain of logic, none of it said aloud.
Seventeen murders. One every twenty-eight days.
A cycle.
Sure.
But a very specific kind of cycle. She gave me a small nod.
I didn’t need to look at the calendar. Not for the next kill and not for any of the kills before that. The pattern screamed at me.
She slid the first envelope across the desk. “Fee and expenses,” she said.
I didn’t touch it, didn’t look at it. I stared down into the smiling eyes of a girl pretending to be a woman who was a couple of days away from becoming a red horror someone would dump in an alley.
Maybe tomorrow.
“We want you to find this girl,” she said.
I said nothing.
“There’s a Word document on the drive that has a complete copy of the case file. Police and FBI reports. Coroner’s report, lab reports. Everything.”
I didn’t ask her how she’d obtained all of that.
“What if I can’t find her in time?”
The woman shook her head. “Then find who’s doing this before there’s a victim eighteen. This isn’t going to stop, Mr. Hunter. Not unless someone stops it.”
“The last kill was in New York. This is Philly. I wouldn’t know where to start.”
She reached across and picked up the business card I’d found on the floor and held it out to me. “This should help.”
I didn’t touch it. Didn’t have to. I could still smell it. I could still smell the blood.
But now I understood.
The woman stood up.
This was the point where I should have asked ‘Why me?’ With all of the other cops and private investigators out there, why me?
We both knew that I wasn’t going to ask that question. We both knew why me.
Twenty-eight days.
I didn’t stand up, didn’t shake her hand, didn’t walk her to the door. Didn’t tell her whether I was going to take the case.
We both knew the answer to that, too.
“I haven’t said that I’m taking the case,” I said.
She flicked a glance at the envelope, then shrugged. “You will if you want to, and you won’t if you don’t. Our policy is to encourage, not to compel.”
“Your policy. You still haven’t told me who you are. I mean, what’s your interest? What’s this Limbus thing and why do you people care?”
No answer to that.
“Okay,” I said, “tell me this. The reporters who died. The heart attacks and strokes and stuff. You think any of that was legit?”
“Do you?”
“Was there any investigation?”
“Routine, in all cases. No one connected the cases because there was no evidence of foul play.”
“Anyone do autopsies on the reporters who croaked?”
“On heart attacks? No. None of the victims were autopsied except for the man who burned to death, and that was ruled death by misadventure.”
“And the stuff that happened to the feds looking into it?”
“As I said, this has become known as a bad luck case.”
“Do you believe in bad luck?” I asked.
She gave me a smile that lifted the crescent scar beside her mouth. “We believe in quite a lot of things, Mr. Hunter.”
With that she turned, walked out and pulled the door shut behind her.
I sat there and stared at the closed door for maybe ten minutes. I don’t think I did anything except blink and breathe the whole time.
Twenty-eight days.
Bodies torn apart.
I picked up the card and sniffed the blood again. Deeply. Eyes closed. Letting the scent go all the way into my lungs, all the way into my senses. I took another breath, and another. Then I put the card down. I wouldn’t need it anymore. That scent was locked into me now. I’d know it anywhere.
Interesting that this broad knew that about me.
We believe in quite a lot of things, Mr. Hunter.
“Shit,” I told the empty room.
I glanced at the envelope. Even if it was filled with small bills, fives and tens, it had to be a couple of hundred. I guessed, though, that the denominations were higher. If it was twenties and fifties, then there were thousands in there. It was a fat envelope.
It sat there and I didn’t pick it up. Didn’t really want to touch it.
Not yet.
I had this thing. If I took the money then I was definitely going to take the case.
Then I opened my laptop, accessed the Word document, and began reading. While I did that I tried not to look at the big calendar pinned to the wall by the filing cabinet. It was this year’s Minnesota Vikings calendar. I liked the Vikings but I didn’t give much of a warm shit as to who was featured on this month’s page. Or any month. The calendar’s only important feature was a set of small icons that showed the phases of the moon.
Twenty eight days.
One day to go.
One day for little Bambi.
A single day until the killer took her skin and her life and emptied her of her dreams and hopes and breath and smiles and life.
A day.